


i keep these memories in a lockbox (even I don't know, even I don't know)

by infinite_wonders



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst and Humor, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canonical Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Bucky Barnes, but like nobody actually dies?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 23:06:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4583577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_wonders/pseuds/infinite_wonders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frankly, he doesn’t understand why he’s even here, at the blond man’s-- Steve Rogers’, <em>Captain America’s</em>-- bedside, watching him suffer and letting it hurt his heart as much as it does.</p><p>Except, that’s a lie, isn’t it?</p><p>Or, that Canonical AU where Bucky gets found and, three months into his tenure with SHIELD, gets to have the amnesiac's version of an existential crisis about the dying former best friend that he can't remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i keep these memories in a lockbox (even I don't know, even I don't know)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Off_to_Neverland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Off_to_Neverland/gifts).



> Written for one of my best friends in the whole wide world. I was talking to her the one day, listening to her rant about how there aren't that many Stucky fics where Steve is the one who's hurt and Bucky's the one who doesn't know how to fix it. I was like, anything else? And she wouldn't give me anything else. She let me loose in the playground.
> 
> I hope this is what you needed in your life!
> 
> P.S. this is unbeta'd. Please understand that there will be mistakes and generally be a load of suck.

When they hear that the latest mission into HYDRA’s base has gone sideways, there’s disappointment in the air but no real weight behind the feeling, because HYDRA isn’t the easiest nut to crack and there’s always next time. There isn’t any news of casualties, or really even of injury, and that’s good enough news that the rest of the mission doesn’t even matter.

Nobody expects that within 12 hours of what would otherwise be a normal day, Steve Rogers would be wheeled in to SHIELD medical, writhing in agony as he screams and begs for it to stop through dry, bitten through lips. 

What happens next though, isn’t so much of a surprise, because Bucky happens to walk by just as they’re rushing to get Captain Rogers seen to, and brainwashed or not, there’s never been anything else that’s stopped him from reaching out for his supposedly former (and hopefully soon to be again, maybe) best friend in some way.

Also, Bucky would bet that there isn’t a man in the world who can deny Steve Rogers, not when he sobs and pleads and manages to bite back obvious pain to utter a single word. A name, his name, said on a prayer, on an appeal. 

“Bucky. Please. _Bucky_.”

For the first time that Bucky can remember, his body acts without any direct input, from himself or from others, and he finds himself at Steve Rogers’ side before he can blink.

He may not remember the details of his past, or really even what this man means to him in the grand scheme of things. But nothing, in the world, could have stopped him from holding his hand when he reaches out. Nothing could have stopped him, even if it dared, from looking into the man's pain glazed eyes and doing his own, stunted best to reassure him.

"You'll be ok, I'm here," he says, and tries not to feel like a fraud as Steve Rogers finally closes eyes and gives in to unconsciousness with a small smile on his face, like that's all he's ever needed to know to be able to let go.

*****

The issue should probably be that Bucky has really only been Bucky, not Winter Soldier, for something like three months. Rather, it’s been three months since Captain Rogers and Sergeant Wilson found him in that godforsaken factory, with his arm crushed in a vice by his own choice and regret taking its rightful place in his chest, like it’s his heart in the vice instead of his arm-- and had all but dragged him back by the hair.

It’s actually only been _two_ months since he’s shed the Winter Soldier and only one month since, since he’s learned to be even be the mere shadow of Bucky Barnes, as he was.

He’s not actually equipped to be holding Steve Rogers’ hand in his time of need, nevermind that he’d gone running the second Rogers had called his name. He doesn’t even respond most of the times, when people call him Bucky, or even call for him at all, and he’s not in any sort of shape to be hinged on by anybody, much less America’s Best and Most Beloved Soldier of All Time™.

But they’re all too busy trying to keep Captain America alive to worry about things like that.

_(There’s always been something about Steve Rogers, like Bucky knows him, like he’d crawled into Bucky at some point and hadn’t bothered to leave even as Bucky became Winter Soldier.)_

_(It’d explain a hell of a lot about why Bucky’s where he is now.)_

*****

They say that it’s like a hellish mix between retrograde amnesia and early onset Alzheimer’s, except it’s also a lot like some apocalyptic version of Lupus, with a contradictory bit of HIV thrown in intermittently, just for shits and giggles. It’s all of that and potentially more, all concocted in some Hydra lab by a couple of lunatics in white labcoats and injected into Rogers-- and for all that SHIELD boasts about having the best of the best in all aspects, this even has _their_ medical team stumped and discouraged.

There’s a lot of talk of muscle strain and white blood cell counts, of organ failure and degenerating kidney function and actual, potentially physical brain damage, each listed out in that cloyingly calm, soothing tone that most doctors use even when anyone with eyes can tell that they’re lost and panicking. 

To be honest, Bucky doesn’t actually understand most of the jargon that flies over his head-- in part because it feels like the doctors want to remind themselves (and everyone else) of their (admittedly hard earned) medical degrees. Also, Hydra had been far more invested in having him learn eighty two different ways to kill a target with his pinky toe rather than anything of actual use in the real world.

Frankly, he doesn’t understand why he’s even here, at the blond man’s-- Steve Rogers’, _Captain America’s_ \-- bedside, watching him suffer and letting it hurt his heart as much as it does.

Except, that’s a lie, isn’t it?

Bucky _knows_ this man, has always known this man, enough to feel things for him with a heart that he hadn’t even known he still had-- to hurt for him, to want to do insane things for him, like pushing his hair back from his face and telling him what a pain in Bucky’s ass he is. He wants to cover him up in the softest blankets they own and feed him soup that’s still mostly edible and he wants a chance to pitch a fit when the other man inevitably makes fun of him for his pathetic ineptitude with anything even peripherally involving a kitchen. 

He wants to walk up to and put a stranglehold on each and every one of the doctors that SHIELD has on payroll, to shake them until they all pull their heads out of their collective asses and do their fucking jobs. He wants to find a way to stop ~~Captain Rogers~~ ~~Captain America~~ Steve Rogers’ body from tearing itself apart and putting itself back together again, only to tear itself apart once more in a vicious fucking cycle.

He wants a lot of things and he’s pretty sure that he has the right to exactly none of it-- there is no co-owned blanket, Bucky doesn’t _have_ a kitchen to set on fire while trying to fulfil his apparently latent mother henning urges where America’s golden boy is concerned, and strangling anyone at this point will likely get him riddled with thirty some odd bullets before he can so much as blink, probationary SHIELD agent or not.

Life is hard.

“Punk,” he grumbles inanely as he stands vigil over the shivering mess of a blond, allowing the worried, exasperated irritation to wash over him him like a soothing, well loved balm. “Can’t stay out of trouble for one second can you?”

He doesn’t know where the words come from, but they come out anyway, drenched in the sort of affection that Bucky had been so sure had been frozen out of him about three cryo sessions and two assassinations in.

And if his cool, metal hand finds its way to Steve Rogers’ forehead, well, it’s not as though he’s intentionally trying to provide any sort of comfort; he simply wants to rest his arm and that particular area just happens to be both perfect and convenient. 

It especially doesn’t affect him in any way when the other man leans into his touch with a shivery sigh.

*****

The hardest part about all of this is probably that Bucky hasn’t had a chance to really assimilate. 

It’s probably why he’s still reeling even two weeks after the fact. Two weeks of Steve Rogers being down for the count, two weeks of the complete, nauseating _wrongness_ of seeing the man alternate between being deathly still and screaming in agony, of terror sinking deep into Bucky’s bones and leaving him cold. Two weeks of fever dreams, and pleading, and Bucky prevaricating between standing around awkwardly and stopping himself from going over to soothe away all of the other man’s hurts and fears, imagined or not.

Two weeks of trying to be the Bucky that everyone says he is, and managing to channel him only about 10% of the time, of trying to lock away almost a century of existence, of training, of consistent erasure and repeated reprogramming, the way the SHIELD shrinks have been trying to make him do for the better part of his, so far, three month stay.

It’s probably the second hardest thing he’s ever had to put himself through.

First place goes to disappointing the nice blond man who’s been coming around and trying to help him, who had rescued him from HYDRA and, later, from himself-- who spends every spare moment trying to help Bucky remember, trying to pretend that everything is fine every time Bucky fails to be anything other than a tempered down, milder version of a former Hydra agent.

Steve Rogers, who says things like “it’ll come to you!” and “take your time, Buck. It’ll be alright!” whenever Bucky fails to remember an obviously important detail, who tries to be as encouraging and positive as possible, as though Bucky can’t see his bright, bright eyes darken a little bit more with every failure, hope diminishing like sand through a sieve. Steve Rogers who lights up like a supernova whenever Bucky even hints at wanting to spend some time together, even it’s only training, and even if it’s mostly the Winter Soldier who comes out to play.

Steve Rogers who hasn’t shot one of his unsolicited, boyish grins in Bucky’s general direction in two weeks, who hasn’t made him wake up at some ungodly hour just so that they can outrun Sergeant Wilson together. Who is sick, and potentially dying, and is making Bucky feel things that he hadn’t thought possible, much less have the capacity to understand or dissect.

A few decades spent being tortured and used at HYDRA’s behest somehow comes in at a measly third place, by comparison.

At the very least it had been less exhausting, as far as Bucky is concerned.

When Steve Rogers wakes up, Bucky is going to give him a piece of his mind, potentially by putting his boot up his ass, or maybe just by locking him into a room and never letting him out into the outside world again.

*****

He should have known that having Rogers awake wouldn’t be any easier; actually, he should have known that Steve Rogers being awake would only herald a whole new world of problems. Incidentally, he should have also expected the fallout that would follow, because Bucky isn’t allowed to have nice things.

That’s nothing new although, apparently, Bucky isn’t even allowed to want such things for other people, now.

It’s moments like this that Bucky wishes that he had his old memories back, mostly because he’s pretty sure that the Old Bucky had a few tricks up his sleeve from he’d had to deal with shit like this the first time around.

*****

When Rogers’ does finally wake, it goes something like this.

“Buck?”

At first, Bucky thinks he’s hallucinating, because it’s been almost three weeks now and Rogers hasn’t shown so much as a fluttering eyelid to indicate that he’s getting better. There’s also that small, masochistic part of him that’s shouting that, after three weeks of radio silence, Steve Rogers’ first word isn’t going to be the nickname they’d all been too glad to hand back to him when he’d rejoined the world of the semi-normal and started trying to transition out of the Winter Soldier mentality. Except--

“Bucky?” Rogers says again, his voice a rasp that makes Bucky wince in sympathy and almost instinctively reach for the ice chips, a lifetime of experience kicking in from God only knows where. “Wha’s goin’ on?”

The relief that Bucky feels is both misplaced and mind boggling, and the things he wants to say are huge and will likely leave devastation in their wake. “You’re in SHIELD medical,” he says instead, keeping his voice cool and even, even as he places a single ice chip into Rogers’ mouth, with his good hand. “You’ve been unconscious for almost three weeks now.”

“I should get a nurse,” he goes on to say when it becomes obvious that there is no response forthcoming and the silence gets a little too awkward, “Your body is apparently under a lot of stress and even the serum isn’t enough to fix whatever is going on. At least, not a hundred percent.”

Understatement of the century, there.

Rogers just nods along or, at least, tries his best to until Bucky heaves an exasperated sigh and places his hand in Rogers’ hair, to make him stop trying to give himself even more brain damage. Things are going relatively well right now, despite everyone’s dire warnings about how badly off he would be when he finally woke up. Bucky finds himself optimistic despite an entire lifetime’s worth of crushed hopes and dreams, somehow finds it in himself to think that maybe Rogers is on the mend and things can go back to whatever version of existence passes for normal around headquarters.

It won’t be ideal, he thinks as he places another ice chip into Rogers’ mouth, because he’s gotten used to being here in this room, with only this man and a passing nurse for company. He’s gotten used to the quiet, again; he’s gotten used to not being prodded every few seconds and not being asked to do impossible things in fewer seconds still. But he’s still so deeply, fiercely, irrationally glad that Rogers is on the mend, that he can even make himself look forward to going back to the old routine.

Everything will be worth it as long as Steve Rogers is healthy, and it’s only a matter of time before SHIELD finally gives him the go ahead, before he’s able to become the Bucky they want him to be rather than the Bucky he actually is.

He has just enough time to talk himself into being enthusiastic about the idea, when Rogers opens his blessed mouth and asks him where the rest of the Commando’s are, and if he can have another ice chip, in that order.

Things only get worse from there.

He doesn’t even notice when Rogers rasps out an impatient noise and calls him a jerk for not getting his icecube to him soon enough. He’s too busy trying to get the nurses over _as soon as possible_.

*****

As it turns out, just because Rogers is awake, doesn’t mean that he’s healthy or even really all that functional. Case in point, the way that Rogers apparently doesn't remember anything beyond World War II. Physically, he seems ok at least, which seems to be a godsend, but the nurses and doctors are quick to assure that it won't last long.

"It's just a matter of time," they say, helpless in that way that happens when inevitability plays a part, "it's going to hit and we're going to have to deal with it when it does."

Except, it's burned into Bucky's brain, how Rogers had arched off the gurney like there was electricity in his spine, lava in his veins. How he'd begged for it to go away, for Bucky to make it stop for him, and how Bucky hadn't been able to do anything but stand there and watch the other man suffer.

Come what may, all fact that his reactions seem blown out of proportion aside, he doesn't think he can go through that again without inflicting some sort damage, to himself, to others, to someone or something. When the time comes and Rogers is begging for him again, Bucky honestly isn’t sure of what his reaction is going to be.

For now though, Rogers is...unexpectedly sweet, in that boy from Brooklyn sort of way, which means that he’s really not that sweet at all and Bucky’s just more fucked in the head than expected for thinking that he is.

“Careful Buck,” he says, grinning despite how wan he looks, how pale, “don’t go overworking your brain with all that thinking.”

Bucky snorts, both at Rogers and at himself because he must be in some sort of shape if this is what he signed up for, getting mocked by invalids. “Yeah, you work on getting better and out of that hospital bed, and then we’ll talk about how I’m more than capable of putting you right back in it.”

*****

For now, the doctors have him, well, they have him pretending to be someone he isn’t. Although by their estimation, he’s just being who he’s supposed to be, or who he was all those years ago before HYDRA had gotten their hands on him and turned his brain into swiss cheese. Problem of it is, Bucky has no context. 

He can pretend all he wants to be from 1940’s Brooklyn, and while he can tell Rogers to quit ‘flappin his lips’ at the ‘dames’ and that it’d be ‘swell’ if he took his medical cocktail of the day, lest he ‘croak’, there isn’t a whole lot more that he _can_ do. The internet is a glorious thing, and Bucky has enough training that he can slip into other skins without too many questions asked. But it’s a completely different story when the so called mark is….well.

“Why are you talking like that?” Rogers asks him at one point, managing to give him an odd _Look_ , capital L, even though he can barely move his eyelids without setting something off. “Are you sauced again?” 

Bucky has to consult the internet before can respond, surreptitiously turning his back so he can type it into his Stark Phone without tipping Rogers off about the time period. It takes him ten seconds to decipher the meaning and another three to make his way back to Rogers’ bedside, including the two seconds that it takes to (very, very gently) scuff up Rogers’ hair. Bonus points for doing it just as a nurse walks in and starts giggling about their shenanigans.

“I didn’t know,” he says, smug as he revels in Rogers’ squawk of horror and indignation, “that ‘knuckleheads’ like you even knew what ‘booze’ was.”

Ha, sauced indeed.

*****

It’s not all good times though, and it’s not long before the medical teams’ dire warnings start coming to fruition. At first, it’s mostly just easy stuff-- lacerations, lesions, and bruises that disappear as quickly as they form because the Serum is still doing its job. Rogers doesn’t like how he feels, because there’s some level of discomfort, but he isn’t screaming his lungs out the way he had when HYDRA’s cocktail had first hit, all those weeks ago.

Bucky will take what blessings he can get, while he can get them.

Still, it’s a little tragic how upset Rogers looks, because to him, it’s still World War II, nevermind all of the much more modern medical supplies that are currently being used on him. They’d told him that Howard Stark had invented things just for him, because it was necessary. Rogers hadn’t really questioned them beyond that.

But, he feels that a week out of commission over what he feels are just exhaustion and bruises, is completely unacceptable.

When Bucky hears this, he snorts and very kindly doesn’t mention that it’s been closer to a month now, that Rogers has only been conscious for a week, but has been in the hospital for going on a total of four.

“I should be out there,” Rogers says, sounding every bit the earnest, all American Soldier Boy™, “I should be fighting and helping us win the war.”

“You can’t even touch things without turning black and blue,” Bucky retorts back, making a show of rolling his eyes, “You would literally bleed out and die at the first scrape you get and then where would we be?”

Rogers, for lack of a better word, bristles. “I would not!” he says, and winces when his entire arm bruises up for no real, discernable reason.

It’s all downhill from there.

*****

They don’t get any sort of warning that the situation is about to degenerate.

One second, Bucky is arguing with Rogers about the merits of _staying in bed_ like a good invalid so that he can _recover faster_ , and the next Rogers’ eyes are rolling into the back of his head until only whites show.

Then the screaming begins and Bucky can feel his heart sinking down to his stomach as the livewire takes over Steve’s spine again, making him arch until Bucky thinks that it’s gonna snap, right in two.

The irony is not lost on Bucky even as he shouts for assistance and lets Rogers do his very best to crush his metal hand like a soda can. He’s pretty sure that he’s never again going to be able to keep Rogers in bed when he’s sick, because hey, if this is what rest does for him-- 

Not, of course, that Bucky plans on being around for Rogers in that capacity at all.

Except, nowadays, anytime Bucky so much as steps out for more than ten minutes, Rogers ends up completely losing it.

It’s heartbreaking how he begs Bucky to not leave him, to stay with him please, _please he can’t bear to lose him_ \-- and Bucky just can’t deal with that, so he holds his hand and smiles and says things as they come to him, parrots back what Rogers had said so long ago, as they fought to the death on the crashing helicarrier.

“Sh, I’m with you til the end of the line, remember?” he soothes, fighting to keep his voice calm even though all he wants to do is scream until his throat tears apart, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Something about those words, said in that voice, allows Rogers to rest more easily, allows for a bruised little smile to cover blood stained lips, for crystalline eyes to close in respite, and Bucky finds himself so grateful for that small mercy that he could almost cry.

He has to wonder where this all leaves him, because it’s more than a little obvious that he’s invested now. It hurts him to watch Rogers hurt, claws into his heart and tries to pull it out of his ribcage. But he has so real basis for any of it, other than instinct. He’s Rogers’ Bucky for now, through the help of SHIELD and the internet, but he’s gotta wonder how long it’ll last.

If he were a betting man, Bucky would bet not for much longer.

*****

He catnaps on a chair these days, placed as close to Rogers as possible, just in case he wakes up and needs Bucky for anything at all. At this point, Bucky doesn’t even wonder why he reacts this way, doesn’t question his nonexistent memories. He feels the need to stay and so he does, because there isn’t anything else that he can do.

And so, he sleeps and, when he wakes back up, there’s snow on the ground and more falling still. He gets up and walks over to the window, allowing the glass to fog as he stares out and wonders how he got here, how this could be happening. Which is probably why he jumps about three feet and freaks when arms suddenly go around him, assassin training and spatial awareness be damned.

When he manages to turn around, it’s to the sound of laughter in his ears, deep and rich and full of good humor and blue, blue eyes shining in glee. “I got ya, huh?” Steve says, pearly whites peeking through his grin, the corner of his eyes creasing up because the stupid punk always does everything at 110%, which apparently includes smiling with his entire face.

“How are you even out of bed?” Bucky asks, too awestruck to even retaliate, too invested in touching Rogers’ face and revelling in how smooth and how, how _unhurt_ it is to even bother removing himself from the circle of Rogers’ arms. “You’re supposed to be resting. Where are your bruises?” 

Rogers just smiles, just a shade apologetic, just a bit bracing, like he’s trying to encourage Bucky to keep his chin up--which is when Bucky figures it out.

“Oh,” he says, quietly.

“Yeah,” Rogers says, smile becoming rueful, a little melancholy, as he gently pushes Bucky’s hair back from his face, “I’m sorry.”

Bucky tries to smile back, fails at anything more than a grimace, and says, “It’s not your fault.” He turns back around, allows Rogers to hook his chin over his shoulders, and they watch the snow piling up together, bodies about as close as they could possibly be without actually climbing into each others’ skin.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” he asks, inane and uncaring of it, because he wants to hear something from this man that he barely knows, who’s come to matter so much, who gives him so much strength and will to keep going. For once, he wants to hear his voice without any pain, without exhaustion coating every word, and if this is the only chance he’s going to get, he’s going to make good use of it. “Been a long while since snow meant anything other than cold and suffering.”

He feels a soft kiss press into his temple, lets himself settle a little better against the muscular chest at his back, feels the response vibrate through the air and into his skin.

“ _Oh, Bucky._ ”

When he wakes up, it’s to the sound of beeping in the air, to a machine keeping count of every one of Rogers’ heartbeats, to fever bright eyes watching him from no more than a foot and a half away.

Bucky gently runs his hand, the human one, down the other man’s arm, making sure not to bruise up already injured skin. “Go back to sleep, Rogers,” he says, “I’ll be here.”

*****

“Why won’t you call me Steve?” Rogers asks one day, another week having passed since he’d abruptly taken a turn for the worst. He’s covered in bandages from the ruptures on his skin, his voice is thready and weak, and he sounds so plaintive, so hurt and alone that it makes Bucky want to cry. 

Bucky lets out a shivery sigh. 

What’s he supposed to say? That he’s not the real Bucky? That he’s the man formerly known as Bucky who’s just starting to slip back into his own skin? That it somehow doesn’t feel right to appropriate his familiar, wonderful first name -- _Steve_ \--without becoming worthy of the name Bucky first?

“It’s just,” he starts to say, wincing a little at the stutter in his voice, before stopping again.

Rogers looks a little like Bucky’s just nailed him right in the solar plexus, like the air’s been punched right out of him and God help him, but it does something painful to Bucky’s chest.

“I always wondered,” Rogers says after a few seconds, while Bucky’s still reeling from it all, sounding so, so weak and a little like all of his hopes and dreams had been reduced to ashes. Worse, like he’s at peace with it because he _deserves_ it. “I- I wondered if you’d hate me for what I did to you, whenever I felt any sort of hope that you might have survived.”

Bucky can’t stand this; he just, he _can’t_ \-- because it hurts too much and he _still doesn’t have any context_. 

“What do you mean?” he asks, managing to keep his voice calm and clean, despite the anxiety threading its way through his stomach, up his throat, “What is that you think you did to me?” He doesn’t want to know, because he’s pretty sure it’s not his to hear-- this is for Rogers’ Bucky and not something for Bucky as he is now. 

But he’s all Rogers has got at this point and he, of all people, knows the importance of setting things straight, of not having regrets where things should have been said. “Talk to me, Rogers,” he coaxes, because he doesn’t want to hear but Rogers needs to say it, “help me understand.”

Rogers, to Bucky’s complete and utter horror, sobs.

“I let you die,” he whispers through gritted teeth, like it hurts worse than anything to say it out loud. “I should have saved you before you fell, on that train. It should have been me.”

“But I didn’t,” he continues on a watery, hollow laugh that makes Bucky _ache_ , “and it wasn’t. And now you won’t even call me by my given name.”

There’s so much bitterness in his voice, so much self-loathing and resentment imbued in every word, that it hits Bucky like a slap to the face. Except, he knows that not one whit of it is aimed towards him, which only alarms him even more because this is not how Steve Rogers is supposed to be-- this is not the man who’s been so optimistic and sweet throughout the shittiest of Bucky’s, admittedly, epic temper tantrums.

Of all people, Steve Rogers doesn’t deserve to feel like this.

“I’m sure there wasn’t anything you could have done,” Bucky says, a little desperate and a lot upset about the whole situation. “Literally, I think you couldn’t have done anything beyond what you already did.”

Rogers is breaking his heart. The look on his face, wistful and sad and full of so much regret, is more than Bucky can stand when he’s already stretched so thin over the past few weeks, already so worried about the thoughts of Rogers dy-- being unwell.

It’s both a relief and a punch to the gut when Rogers starts to fall asleep again; for all that Bucky’s spent the better part of his life as a stone cold assassin, there will always be some things that he just can’t bear.

“I never thought I’d have to lose you twice,” Rogers mumbles, sleepy now but still so heartbroken and _that’s it_. 

“Oh Stevie,” he says in an undertone as he goes and gently rakes his fingers through the other man’s hair. He’s trying to sound scolding and mostly failing when he says, “I’d ask you how you get into these things but, well, it’s not like I don’t already know.” From reading books, from watching documentaries, from the few months of interaction that he’s gotten in place since he left HYDRA. It hurts to even say, to push the lie out of his lips like chalk and nails.

It’s worth the slight smile that it puts on Rogers’, no, Steve’s face as he falls asleep, though.

The next chance Bucky gets, he stops the nearest doctor for a sitrep-- he’s not sure he can keep going like this for all that much longer, and he knows for sure that Rogers, _Steve_ , definitely can’t.

It’s not good news that he hears.

*****

“He’s degenerating,” they tell him and he hears it from far away, through ears stuffed with cotton, “He’s not got much longer left, at this rate.” They sound every bit as desperate as he feels, bleak and lost because they’re doing everything that they can and it’s still not good enough. If an antidote isn’t found within the day or two, Steve’s body is going to give out and he’s going to die, serum be damned.

There aren’t enough words in the world, enough languages even, describe how much Bucky doesn’t want that.

At the end of it all, he may not really know Steve, at least, not as he knew him two reincarnations ago, as James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th and childhood best friend. But he knows Steve as he is _now_.

He knows how he blames himself and how he covers all of that hurt up with a puppy dog smile and shitloads of sarcasm, alternatively. He knows how he smiles, and how he cries, and freaking _kind_ he is even when he shouldn’t be. He knows how he butts his head into Bucky’s hand when Bucky runs his fingers through his hair, how he smiles whenever Bucky does something for him, no matter how trivial, how he--

\--how he wants Bucky, _his_ Bucky, back more than _anything_ in the world but he won’t pressure Bucky the amnesiac to remember faster, just to make himself happy.

And Bucky, well, he can’t lose that, again if history is anything to go by. He can’t stand to have HYDRA take one more thing from him-- because they took his identity, his autonomy, and his very _life_ away from him and he’ll be damned if they’re going to take Steve too.

Something’s got to give, and it doesn’t take him very long to figure out what.

There’s a strange, heavy sensation in the air as he cuts the doctors off with an icy glare, revelling a little in their fear as he bares his teeth and strikes terror in their hearts. 

Because at the end of the day, he’s tried to work through this as Bucky the Best Friend, to hold Steve’s hand and help him heal and it very much has not worked. Now he thinks it might be time to bring out his better assets.

Bucky’s got a particular set of skills, not necessarily something that he’s completely proud of, but one that’s served him better than anything else that he can remember. It’s about time he let’s him out to play again.

He closes his eyes and, when he opens them again, he’s Winter Soldier once more.

It’s time to set loose the dog of war.

*****

All said and done, it doesn’t take very long to convince Nick Fury that his way is the best way-- because Fury would rather lose his other eye before he loses Steve, and he’d rather lose Bucky before he loses even that. After all, Bucky’s already died twice, according to the history books, once when he fell off the train, and once when HYDRA got their hands on him and systematically erased everything Bucky Barnes.

What’s one more time, in the grand scheme of things?

He comes out of himself, out of the hollow eyed shadow he’s become, just long enough to march himself over to Steve’s hospital room, where he’s spent so long that it actually, _sadly_ , feels a little like home. “You’ll get better, Steve,” he says, a mild threat in his voice, just a trace of the assassin that he’s barely reeling in at this point as he levels a glare at the passing medical staff, ” _Or so help me._ ”

It’s a little gratifying to know that --even if they would have done so anyway, because Steve is Steve and everybody damned well _better_ love him-- Bucky’s done his part to keep them in line.

“I’ll maybe be back,” he tells Steve when he’s done putting the fear of God, or _worse_ , into everyone, “Maybe not. But you be good, got it? I don’t wanna go through all of this effort for you and then find out that you went and got yourself killed, anyway.” He sighs. “All the self preservation of a leming, I swear,” he says and, with a kiss to the forehead that’s only slightly strange, he starts to walk right back out.

Why waste time on goodbyes when no one’s awake to hear them? 

Still, he finds himself turning around at the door, some instinctive part of his brain not letting him leave without one last parting shot, even though he doesn’t know exactly what that’s supposed to be.

“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back,” he finds himself saying, and smiles when he hears a distant echo reply back.

_How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you._

*****

The plan ends up being simple, because Bucky doesn’t have the energy or the inclination to really flesh things out and frankly, he doesn’t think he has the time. Every second wasted is another second that Steve might be in agony, that he might be crying out for him-- that he might close his eyes and never open them again, that Bucky might never get to see bright blue eyes sparkling at him as Steve makes some sassy, bitchy comment in his general direction. 

Just the thought is enough to make Bucky feel like there’s acid in his lungs, each breath like shards of glass in his throat and right now is not the time for thoughts like that because he needs to focus on the job at hand, not what he left behind. 

Point of it is, he fully plans to break in, get the antidote, send it to SHIELD through whatever means necessary and, hopefully, get the hell out of dodge.

It’s the execution that’s going to end up leaving a lot to be desired. Of course, it’s also a huge, impossible assumption that he’s going to be able to make it back at all because he knows HYDRA, knows how they operate, and what they do to prisoners of war.

Bucky, even if he’s having a harder time than usual admitting to it, knows he’s not making it back, one way or another.

But what the hell, he’s already died twice for no apparent reason that he can see, he’s already spent a big portion of his life where death may have been an actual blessing, even. Might as well make this last one count for something good-- might as well go out on the high of a worthy cause.

“Live well, punk,” he whispers into the air and takes one more step towards the end game, “even if I can’t be there to watch you do it.”

((He has no doubts that there is no cause worthier than Steve Rogers living to smile another day.))

*****

He sneaks in, because of course he does-- because while he’s neither the man that he was nor the man that he was ~~trained~~ brainwashed to be, he’s still got the sense to know that going in guns blazing would ensure that he never gets what he needs. So he’s careful not to make any noise or leave any trace, just in case, just until he gets the cure to where it’s so, absolutely necessary. 

It helps that he’s been with HYDRA long enough that he knows where everything is and, as loathe as he is to be grateful for anything about his tenure in this hellhole, he feels some measure of thankfulness for being able to get where he needs to be without raising any alarms.

He doesn’t think about what he’s leaving behind, about what he’s going to sorely miss, what he sort of already _does_ , in a really pathetic sort of way. He slips back into the skin where it’s most comfortable, whether he wants it to be or not, where the only thing that matters is the mission at hand and not the affection carved into his heart through days, weeks, _~~decades~~_ _months_ of exposure to ridiculous, sassy blonds and their stupid bright grins and their shitty 40s puns.

It, unsurprisingly, doesn’t take a whole hell of a lot to get into the lab and break into the server where he knows classified information is kept. Not when he knows what he’s got to lose.

*****

It’s exactly 12am, the day after Bucky sets out to fix things, when SHIELD medical receives an email with a single attachment. There’s no message, not even one about how Bucky managed to beat SHIELD to the solution by a whole 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, and 7 hours.

Five minutes after that, Bucky Barnes, age 28, both former and soon to be again (or not) best friend of Steve Rogers, lets himself quietly slip away on a whispered goodbye.

The Winter Soldier resurfaces with a cocked AK-47, something like a thousand HYDRA agents at the door of the lab where he’s barricaded himself, and a chip on his shoulder the size of a medium sized, third world country.

He doesn’t say a word as he fires the first shot, as he rains bullets and brimstone into the place, the people, that made him necessary in the first place. He doesn’t do anything other than smile, cold and grim and dead on the inside, as they return the favor and match him bullet for bullet.

No one is notified when Bucky falls in a hail of fire and blood, taking down a decent sized chunk of the East Coast Division of HYDRA with him in the process.

When Bucky Barnes emerges one last time, after everything is said and done and retribution has been doled out in the form of bloodshed and carnage, it’s with the knowledge that he’s done good-- that he’s done something that’ll be worth all the pain and suffering in the world, once the logistical parts are taken care of and Steve gets what he needs. 

It’s with the image of sun soaked hair and fiery, sapphire eyes burned into his heart that he finally lets go, of red lips stretched tight over pearly white teeth, in a shit eating grin that God, he’s gonna miss so, _so_ much.

His final thought is of vicious, bone deep satisfaction and only a smidge of misplaced regret.

 _He’s worth it,_ all _of it, every last second of smiling and aching and feeling like he’s drowning in his own body._

He closes his eyes.

Epilogue

_He opens his eyes to bright, glaring sunshine and a headache that he’d literally kill someone to get rid of. Except-- he’s clearly inside, likely in a hospital if the beeping is anything to go by, and he may not know a lot of things right at this moment, starting with his name which, what? Why doesn’t know that? But he does know that there’s no such thing as an inside sun because he’d burn to death on top of being in pain, and while the death part sounds pretty damned tempting right now, the rest of it isn’t exactly his cup of tea._

_Wait, does he even like tea? Does that matter?_

_A bit of heavy blinking and squinting reveals not the sun, but a headful of short, flyaway hair the color of gold and blue, blue eyes brimming with tears._

_“Bucky?” the strange man asks, mouth raw and pink where he must’ve spent a lot of time chewing on it, and there’s a part of him that wants to reach up and smooth away the pinched look on what is, objectively, an extremely attractive face. But first--_

_”Who’s Bucky?” His voice comes out in a terrible, quiet rasp, like he hasn’t used it in too long or like he’s been gargling concrete for shits and giggles._

_Maybe he has; who knows? He apparently doesn’t._

_The man smiles, a little sad and a lot tremulous and so, so happy despite it all._

_“That’s you,” he says, “You’re Bucky. Welcome home.”_

_Huh, Bucky thinks, home, and wonders at how nice that feels._

_“You’re such a jerk,” the other man says, a fond, if melancholy smile on his face, “doing this to me again and again.”_

_Bucky snorts. “Punk,” he rasps, and smiles._

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, not sorry? I'm not actually sure with this one. I think I'm sorry. No, no. I know I'm sorry. I don't know man. I did weird shit with this one. 
> 
> Also, apparently, when I finished this fic at 3am, I finished it by killing off Bucky. I didn't remember this until later in the day, when the bestie I wrote this for made me read it and ordered me to make him live. I KNOW RIGHT?! UGH. ~~(no really I was super glad bc I never wanted to kill him. Just hurt him. And confuse him.)~~
> 
> I hope you liked my trash fic more than I did? Do?


End file.
